Are These Fish Suitable To Go With Black Ghost Knifes?

[mike_nofx]

Hi, i found some fish i liked at the aquarium shop and was curious as to wether they would be ok with my current fish. I have 2 Black Ghost Knifes, and a Bristlenose...

I dont know the proper names of the fish i liked at the shop, just what was written on the tank glass

The fish i liked were,

• Silver Dollar
• Electric Yellow
• Venustus
• Pictus catfish
• Salmon Catfish
• Oskars
• Tandanus Cat
• Moori
• red hook
• any type of shark?

I am not thinking of getting all of these fish, just some which would be suitable for my tank.
Its a 96Gal BTW

Thanks

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Having never kept ghost knifes myself i cannot give you much in the way of personal experience, at first glance though the list sounds ok...Probably be better to wait until somone with some good cichlid keeping experience comes a long though as some of those fish are quite agressive. I don't think there is such a thing though as a "salmon catfish" though so that name is most likely not a correct common name, can you describe the fish at all?

 

[Wiggler 1]

You have not mentioned size of your ghostknifes.....but they can grow to 20 inches, and they do start eating fish
when the ghostknifes are about 6 inches in size....Personal experiance....Great fish though..........
I dont know about all the fish on your list but the Oscars are a fish eating fish and if your Ghostknifes are just small ones then they could be a expensive supper for a Oscar.....hope this can help you some

 

[SamUK]

all those fish are in the fish index.


you really need to do some reading cos the electric yellow and morri are african cichlids and shudnt be kept with anything but other african cichlids.

 

[blitztidus]

I go by the size of how big their mouth can get. Anything that can't fit in their mouth or is too fast for them is fine

 

[Jules H-T]

There is some debate over whether it's OK to keep two BGKF together, my personal view is no. I've seen in a friend's tank one become dominant and the other suffer badly as a result. That was in a tank far too small for them though. The trouble was kicking off bigtime and I had to give a home to the larger one. These were identical sized to start with 6 months or a year ago, now mine is nudging a foot long and the other is still struggling to push 6". Are you seeing one being obviously more successful than the other? How old are they?

These fish are blind, and find their way about using electrical fields. I'm on shakey ground here, but I have read that the fields of two BGKF interfere with each other. You could be OK because they are in a good sized tank.

I am sure there will be other much more experienced BGKF keepers in the oddballs section, have an ask in there because these are far from standard fish.

I don't know about a fish that is too fast for a BGKF, they can absolutely shoot through the water when they want to, no more than half a second to make it 4 foot along my tank- like a frigging torpedo. Big fat jaw bones and a big bite- they hoover up food at a massive rate of knots, mine can just suck up 1/4 of a king prawn, and a cube of bloodyworm doesn't last seconds.

 

[mike_nofx]

The Salmon catfish.... its hard to explain what it looks like....

its silver, smooth body, (long wiskers?)

 

[andywg]

I keep two bgk together and it is fine. they have a very weak electrical field for location. However, you do need a big tank to keep more than one. I have my two in a 6x2x2 and would want nothing smaller for more than one.

I did see some aggression between the two, but now they tend to keep to themselves, though I do occasionally see them curled up asleep together. However, I will not claim this to be an authoritative venture as they have only been together for just over a year (both are around 7 to 8 inches now).

With tank mates, they normally advise to make sure anything is larger than 3 inches.

 

[boxman]

Two are fine, I had two for ages but they do get BIG and they WILL grow faster than you think!

If you get a couple of small plastic plumbing pipes and 1/2 bury it in your substrate they'll hide themselves in there, even better are clear ones then you can see them!

Yes, 3" + for any tank mates and preferably steer clear of bottom dwelling territorial fish as these guys are particularly miffed if someone nicks their hidey hole!

 

[steelhealr]

Any fish that can fit into a knifefish's mouth is not safe. SH

 

[CFC]

The salmon catfish is Arius graeffei, a large growing catfish which attains a length of around 20 inches. The Tandus cat is most likely Tandus tandus, another large growing catfish which can get to be over 30 inches in length, both fish are predatory and are natives of Australia.

Avoid the Electric Yellow, Venustus and Moori, these are all African Cichlids which have vastly different water requirements and are very aggressive.

Of your list the silver dollars and pictus are the most suitable tankmates for a BGK.